


The Pebble in your Shoe

by octopus_fool



Series: Yuletide Cheer [30]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Humor, M/M, Oblivious Bilbo, Presents, Traditions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:47:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17112131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/pseuds/octopus_fool
Summary: Bilbo is not a happy hobbit. Everywhere he goes, annoying pebbles keep showing up. Meanwhile, Thorin is the unhappiest dwarf in all of Erebor.





	The Pebble in your Shoe

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 24 of [Arda Advent](http://ardaprompts.tumblr.com/post/180626386876/join-me-in-creating-wintery-fanworks-about), the prompt was "misunderstood gifts".

The first thing Bilbo did when he found the small, greyish blue pebble in front of his door was to look up. It looked rounded and unlikely to have just dropped from the ceiling, but while the dwarves had unfailing trust in the structure of Erebor, Bilbo did not. Satisfied that there were no cracks from which the stone could have fallen, Bilbo moved on. The cleaning crew would probably take care of it and maybe give it to a dwarfling, it did look too pretty to be thrown away. 

It had not disappeared the next day, nor the one after that. Bilbo sighed. He had had enough of rocks and pebbles on the quest. There had always seemed to be one or another turning up in his pack or somehow creeping under his pillow or back when he slept. The one thing he had really been looking forward to in Erebor was a distinct lack of pebbles where he slept, ate, walked and lived.

 

A few days later, Bilbo saw one of the dwarves currently on the cleaning rota sweeping the floor in front of his door. He neatly swept around the pebble.

“Excuse me,” Bilbo asked as politely as he could. “Why aren’t you removing that pebble?”

The dwarf looked at him with wide eyes. “Oh, I couldn’t do that, it wouldn’t be proper.”

Bilbo sighed and resigned himself to living with a pebble in front of his door. He would have removed it himself, but if it wasn’t done, well, he didn’t want to step on anymore dwarven toes. 

 

A week or so later, the stone got company. The new stone was dark grey with shiny black veins running through it. It was pretty, just like the first stone had been, but more flashy. After admiring it, Bilbo set it back down next to the first one. 

He walked on, but after a few steps, he turned around on an impulse. He wagged his finger at the stones. “Don’t you even think of multiplying!” 

Bilbo felt enormously silly for doing so, but you never knew around stones in a dwarven city. 

 

A smooth, flat, green stone somehow showed up at the place in the library where Bilbo usually worked. It was nice-looking, so Bilbo used it as a paper weight. 

 

Bilbo had been right about the stones multiplying, he realised with a sigh one morning. There, between the greyish blue pebble and the stone with the black veins, sat a smooth black pebble with flecks of white crystal. Bilbo inspected it and then left the stones to do their thing, whatever that was. 

A reddish stone soon joined them, then a pure black one and another one with a greenish tinge. 

The stones started showing up in other places too. There were more at the library, then at his place at the table in the dinning hall. The small garden he had on the mountainside soon had a small stack of pebbles on either side of the gate. It looked quite fetching, Bilbo thought, and outside was exactly where pebbles and small stones belonged. He briefly considered relocating the stack of stones and pebbles that was growing in front of his door, but the words of the dwarf who had refused to clean them away stopped him.

 

“What are these stones worth?” Bilbo asked one of the merchants on the market, holding out the stones from his involuntary collection that he thought might be worth most.

The merchant peered at the rocks through her magnifying glass. “Oh, quite a nice sum,” She said. “You aren’t thinking of _selling_ them though, are you?!”

“Um, no? Of course not,” Bilbo replied, slightly perplexed by her tone of shock. “I just wanted to know.”

He hurriedly took the stones back and left merchant behind, shaking her head and muttering about bad manners.

 

Bilbo continued to take note of the new stones, but he decided there were more important things to worry about. Sorting the books of the library continued to keep him rather busy and he was a bit worried about Thorin. Thorin had grown a little withdrawn and refused to tell Bilbo what was wrong. 

Finally, Bilbo even ended up visiting Glóin, who had been appointed treasurer and responsible for the kingdom’s gold, since Thorin preferred to keep a safe distance from the gold after what had happened before the Battle of the Five Armies.

“Has Thorin been to the treasury recently?” Bilbo asked tentatively.

Glóin wrinkled his brow. “No. You know he wanted to stay away from the gold, just in case. Why do you ask?”

“Good, I just wanted to make sure.”

 

“I was wondering,” Dwalin asked one day, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck, “what is your favourite type of rock?”

Bilbo stared at him blankly. “Type of what?”

“Type of rock. Do you like granite, or perhaps andesite? Troctolite, sovite, breccia, greywacke, gneiss or eclogite? Or maybe skarn, blueschist, oolite, jaspillite or flint? Or something else entirely?”

“I... I don’t think I’ve ever thought about that. Or heard of most of those, to be honest. I’m not all that fond of rocks, you know. I prefer living things, generally speaking. Why are you asking?”

“Oh, um, I’m just asking for a friend.”

Dwalin hurried off, leaving a thoroughly confused Bilbo behind. Why on earth would Dwalin want to know something like that, and why did he think Bilbo would fall for the old ‘asking for a friend’ excuse?

 

Bilbo’s stacks of stones and pebbles continued to grow. A beautiful mossy stone showed up on his garden wall and a series of stones that looked like they had once been snails, shells or strange creatures showed up in the other usual places.

Bilbo wondered if he would one day be unable to open his door and leave because there was such a huge mountain of stones in front of it.

 

They did make nice table decorations, Bilbo thought as he looked at the collection surrounding his place at the breakfast table. They had come to draw strange glances from dwarves Bilbo did not know, who left shaking their heads, but at least this morning, Bilbo was unbothered by onlookers. 

With a hearty bite, Bilbo bit into his piece of bread. He nearly screamed in pain as he bit onto something hard.

Bilbo spit out a pebble, deep black with golden veins. It was absolutely beautiful. It nearly cost Bilbo a tooth.

“I am sick of pebbles, I am sick of stones! I never want to find another of these obnoxious pebbles near my things, or in my food!”

The dwarves stared at him. There was dead silence at the tables around his. Kíli’s mouth was opened in a very unflattering impression of a fish, Glóin determinedly stared at the table and Ori wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. Thorin sagged into his seat with a strangled sound and Dwalin patted him on the back. 

“What? What have I done wrong now?” Bilbo asked, unnerved by the dwarves’ reaction to his well-deserved outburst.

He noticed that the dwarves that weren’t staring at him or very pointedly not looking at anything in particular kept glancing at Thorin. Nobody said a word.

“Would somebody please explain what is going on?” Bilbo asked.

“He doesn’t know!” Ori whispered. 

Balin turned towards Thorin. “Did you actually think to make sure that hobbits have the same tradition before you started this? Did you check that he at least knew about the dwarven customs?”

Thorin shook his head and sagged even deeper into his seat.

“But everyone loves beautiful stones!”Kíli exclaimed. “How can anyone not instinctively understand the meaning behind giving pebbles?!”

“Are you behind all these rocks, these stones, these pebbles that show up everywhere I go?” Bilbo asked Thorin, knowing by now that reacting to Kíli’s helpful input more often than not just complicated things.

Thorin nodded unhappily. 

“Why?” Bilbo asked.

“I’m sorry,” Thorin whispered. “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be obnoxious. Please forgive me.”

And with that, Thorin stood up and fled from the dinning hall. Bilbo stared after him in confusion. Balin buried his face in his hands and groaned.

“Would someone _please_ explain what is going on? Why did he leave those stones at my door?”

All faces turned to Balin, who groaned again. “Why is it always me who has to explain everything?”

The dwarves at the other tables were still watching expectantly, hoping for the next act of the show.

“Come with me, laddie,” Balin said, standing up. “Far too much of this has already been discussed in public. I’ll explain outside.”

Bilbo got up, leaving behind breakfast, stones and a hall of dwarves starting to buzz with whispers.

“So you do not know why dwarves give pebbles to another?” Balin ask once they had closed the doors to the hall behind them and walked a little.

“No, and I wish somebody would finally tell me.”

“It is a sign of courtship. If a dwarf finds a beautiful stone or pebble, the dwarf gets the urge to give it to the person he cares about most. Dwarflings will give pebbles to their parents or parents pebbles to their children, but in adult dwarves, it is mainly a sign of courtship.”

Bilbo sat down heavily on a bench that was conveniently close to where they were walking when Balin had started talking.

“So Thorin was trying to court me?! He gave me pebble after pebble and I... I ignored them. I asked why they weren’t being cleaned away, I even considered selling them. Oh. No wonder Thorin has seemed upset lately.”

“You didn’t know, laddie.”

“But why didn’t anybody _tell_ me?!”

“It is such an intuitive thing for dwarves that I think almost nobody considered that hobbits wouldn’t know it. And when I heard that Thorin had sent Dwalin to talk to you, I thought he would also make sure that you knew about the custom.”

“That was... he just asked my what my favourite type of rock was! I had no idea what was going on!”

“I am so sorry, laddie.”

Bilbo’s head was spinning, but there was one thing he was quite certain about.

“So, if a dwarf, say, wanted to accept a courtship. How would he go about it?”

“He would accept the gifts and give a gift in return.”

“Would any stone or pebble do? Are there rules to this, things to consider?”

“It should be a pebble or stone that resonates with you, something you feel is right. It is unusual to give pricey stones, since that would be seen as thinking the recipient only wants the very best a dwarf has to offer, but in desperate cases, the dwarf trying to court someone will resort to it.”

Bilbo thought back to the pebble with golden veins that he had spat out that morning and a deep sense of shame settled in him. Thorin and the entire mountain had to think that absolutely nothing was good enough in Bilbo’s eyes, that all Thorin’s attempts were in vain.

“Would I leave it for him somewhere or can I give it to him directly? And should I do so in public, after I inadvertently rejected him so many times?”

The very thought of doing something so private in public was unpleasant to Bilbo, but he felt determined to do whatever was necessary.

“Any way is fine. You don’t have to do it public, Thorin would have a piece of jewellery, probably a necklace, made with the pebble and would wear it publically, which would be enough to let people know.”

“Thank you, Balin. I don’t know how I ever would have found out these things without you.”

 

Bilbo spent most of the day trying to find a fitting pebble. There were surprisingly few smooth pebbles to be found on the mountainside and for a moment, Bilbo wondered if all of them were lying in the places he spent most of his time. Then Bilbo realised he was being ridiculous, generations of dwarves had searched the mountainside for the right pebbles. 

Perhaps there would be more pebbles of the right shape by the shore in Dale, Bilbo decided and made his way to the growing town. It was market day and Bilbo got caught in the crowd, inching past the stands with vegetables, toys and spices. As he walked past a stand with spices and apothecary supplies, something caught Bilbo’s eye. 

“Excuse me, are those stones?”

The merchant looked at the round objects he was pointing at. “No, those are nuts from a far off country, though without the right tools they might as well be stones since they are so hard to crack.”

Bilbo rolled one of them between his fingers. It felt heavy and solid. “Do they stay this way or will they change or go bad?”

“I wouldn’t guarantee that the inside never goes bad, but unopened, it will look the same for at least a century.”

“How much would one of them cost?”

“A single one? You’ll want more than that.”

Bilbo shook his head. “I just need one, I don’t plan to eat it, I just like the look and the feeling of it between my fingers.”

The merchant shook his head and turned to the next customer. “Just take that one for free.”

 

Bilbo debated whether giving a nut to Thorin was the right thing to do, but Bilbo had always felt more comfortable with plants than with stones and it just _felt_ right. And that was what Balin had said was the important thing. Besides, Bilbo wasn’t a dwarf, so he could be expected to do things a bit differently. 

Thorin was not in any of his usual spots, so Bilbo decided to take care of something else first. He picked up the pebble from that morning from where it was still lying on the table and cleaned the remaining bits of bread from it. Then he went back to his dwelling and dug the first pebble he had found in front of his door out from under the large stack. Bilbo had the feeling that not all of the stones that found his way into his pack during the journey had done so by accident, but there was no way he could retrieve them.

Dori opened after the first knock, even though it was already getting late.

“Balin said that it is customary to fasten these to a necklace or something similar...”

“Leave it to me, I know what is to be done. These two stones then?”

“Yes. I could never wear all of the stones I got, and just wearing one wouldn’t really do any of it justice.”

“That sounds like a good way to go for me,” Dori said. “I’ll have it ready by tomorrow morning.”

“You really don’t have to hurry...”

“Oh, don’t worry, it isn’t that much work. I’ve had the chain ready for ages, so I just have to fit the stones and attach them.”

“Thank you so much, Dori,” Bilbo said.

“You are more than welcome. And I’m sorry we didn’t realise earlier that you had no idea what the stones were about. We all thought you needed time to consider.”

Bilbo sighed. “You know, I don’t think I would have needed much time to consider at all.”

 

Dori held his word and the next day, Bilbo could put the necklace with the two stones around his neck. Finding Thorin proved to be a bit more difficult. Once again, he was in none of his usual spots. 

Bilbo briefly considered leaving the nut in front of Thorin’s door, but considering how that had turned out before, he really didn’t want to risk it. 

It was nearly evening by the time Bilbo came upon Thorin outside the forges deep in the mountain that were usually only used by miners. Thorin looked at him the way a rabbit looked at a fox.

“I’m sorry, Bilbo. I never meant to embarrass or annoy you. I should have stopped giving you the stones much earlier.”

Bilbo shook his head. “Don’t be sorry. Here, this is for you.”

He handed Thorin the nut.

“Is that...”

“It’s not a stone, but I want it to have the same meaning as a stone. None of the stones felt right, but this did. It is a nut, but a hard and nearly as durable as a stone.”

“Did Balin tell you what giving someone a stone means for dwarves?” Thorin asked carefully.

“Yes, he did,” Bilbo replied his heart growing soft at the cautious hope on Thorin’s face. He nestled at his necklace so that Thorin could see the two stones. “And I’d like to accept this courtship, under two conditions.”

“What conditions are those?” Thorin asked. 

“First of all, please never put hard objects in my food again. And please _talk_ to me. We don’t have the same customs and this won’t be the last misunderstanding we have. If I hurt you with something, talk to me rather than assuming that I did it on purpose. Would you do that for me?”

Thorin nodded. “I’ll do my very best, though I cannot guarantee that I’ll always succeed.”

“Thank you, that is all I ask,” Bilbo replied and then hesitated. “I have to admit that I didn’t read up on dwarven courtships yet. Would it be inappropriate to hug you now? Because I very much want to.”

Thorin chuckled and blushed. “Not at all, especially since I would also very much like that.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, I totally based this on penguin courtship habits... ;)


End file.
